How do I make my 2022 Giant Reign rideable? 😂

[Bordtea]

Evening all - took my Giant Reign E+0 to Afan today and the number of pedal strikes I was getting was quite ridiculous.

I have the flip chip in high but even so I lost count of the number of pedal strikes I got today, not even just on techy rocky climbs, I could feel it clipping the ground occasionaly on relatively tame trails too.

It’s a size large so I believe it comes with 165mm cranks as standard - would say the Hope 155mm cranks help to solve this, do I need to increase rear shock pressure significantly etc? Any ideas would be very welcome from anyone who has also had a similar issue!

Edit - just occurred to me that I have changed the front and rear tyre sizes to 2.5 and 2.4 respectively (0.1 decrease each) - could that be part of the cause?

 

[jeanmarc]

What is the final bottom bracket height after change of tires?

 

[Redlemon]

I see you have the E+0 with the Float X2 shock, are you running proper sag (+-30%) ?

Do you check pressure often?

 

[Rosemount]

Check the sag on your rear shock .
They can lose air and cause the BB to be lower .

 

[RustyIron]

My pedals contact stationary objects all the time.
I don't give a flying #$%.
Pedal scrapes are a badge of honor.
It means you ride stuff.

 

[ilostmypassword]

The new fad of long and low is ridiculous. Even my LBS jokes that car park test rides often scrape on flat ground

My local trails are super rocky and technical and a pedal strike has caused me some major crashes. I've readjusted my riding style and things have got better. Every ride though its clear the new bikes are for buffed trails and the popular bike parks (that are arguable not really mountain biking?? Yeah I said it )

My Trance has 160. Will try 155. I also run sag a bit high to compensate. But yeah ridiculous really- and yes I know pedal strike was here before 2022........ but ive ridden the same trials for years and never had issues on my 26er!

 

[Mikerb]

The most likely cause is your shock settings. Either not enough pressure or too much rebound making it pack down.

 

[gaiadoSeco]

I had this problem when I first got the bike and then again when replacement frame came defaulted to low. Set flip chip to high and upped the pressure, issue entirely solved and the bike still rides great downhill, for my type of riding.

 

[Bordtea]

Cheers guys. I’ve set the rear shock a bit stiffer and it definitely felt a bit better today but then I was doing far less technical climbs. We shall see - next step shorter cranks. Thanks for the advice!

 

[Buckaroony]

I’ve had pedal strike issues, changed to a lower profile pedal and it made it a bit better. Am considering swapping out the cranks for 155mm Hopes (med frame). I’m in the HIGH setting on the flip chip.
Happy with the rear shock (X2) so don’t really want to chuck in more air to gain more clearance.
I’m pretty happy with my riding technique and strikes have never been an issue in the past (Specialized Demo 8/Orange Five).
Let us know how you get on if you go for shorter cranks, I’d be interested to see the results.
I’m literally holding off buying nice pedals until I’ve resolved the issue - smashed my HT composites to bits…

 

[jeanmarc]

Maybe add a volume spacer in the rear shock?
I run my E+2 in high mode, stock 160mm cranks with no issue.

 

[Paulquattro]

It's a good job Gary isn't here these days LOL

 

[Rando_12345]

I've had this issue on bikes in the past, a few things to look into:

• Flip chip in High: easiest solution, might not be enough
• Bigger rear tyre: also easy, tradeoffs
• More pressure in shock (and fork): easy but has more important tradeoffs.
• Shorter cranks: miranda cranks are €50 and come in 150mm, im running 155mm on my current bike, will probably go lower on the next as I see only positives.
• More travel up front: if ok with your frame add 1cm to fork travel, this only gives a few mm at the BB
• Offset bushing "upside down": usually used to make big slacker/lower but can be used for the opposite, unfortunately the trunnion mount means you can only run one.
• Custom shock: expensive and dimensions might not always be available, unfortunately the Reign has a fairly weird standard.

 

[steve_sordy]

In order:.....

Read the trail better.
Time your pedal turns.
Reduce the rebound damping on your suspension.
Don't have more than 30% sag.
Increase number of tokens in the suspension.
Shorter cranks.

Only the last one costs money.
(Well OK, the 2nd to last might cost a few quid if you don't already have one).

 

[M AP]

Evening all - took my Giant Reign E+0 to Afan today and the number of pedal strikes I was getting was quite ridiculous.

I have the flip chip in high but even so I lost count of the number of pedal strikes I got today, not even just on techy rocky climbs, I could feel it clipping the ground occasionaly on relatively tame trails too.

It’s a size large so I believe it comes with 165mm cranks as standard - would say the Hope 155mm cranks help to solve this, do I need to increase rear shock pressure significantly etc? Any ideas would be very welcome from anyone who has also had a similar issue!

Edit - just occurred to me that I have changed the front and rear tyre sizes to 2.5 and 2.4 respectively (0.1 decrease each) - could that be part of the cause?

I have the E+0 too. This is what I did:
- flip chip in low position (that should rise the botton braket)
- I removed the token from the rear suspension
- SAG at 25%
Problem solved. I still hit pedals sometimes but in extreme conditions and not any more than friends with other bikes.

 

[Leica9]

In terms of suspension, to increase the ride height you need to run more air. You should then REMOVE tokens so that the suspension is more linear through the stroke so that you still get full travel.

Having more tokens will make the rear wallow during pedalling and it will sag more under body movement as it makes the top of the stroke softer.

Set your sag, then figure out rebound and compression, and then adjust tokens to control bottoming out.

 

[Jurassic]

I found I was getting a few pedal strikes initially and so I swapped the flip chip to high and bought a pair of Miranda 155 cranks to try (with a view to upgrading to Hopes if I liked the shorter cranks). My advice would be to just swap the cranks, I'm struggling to find any negatives on my bike (E+1 size large). I also found that lower profile pedals helped quite a lot as well and took the Nukeproof Neutrons off my Rallon to replace the Deity pedals I initially had on the Giant, they're much better.

 

[Rando_12345]

In terms of suspension, to increase the ride height you need to run more air. You should then REMOVE tokens so that the suspension is more linear through the stroke so that you still get full travel.

Just commenting to agree with this comment as you are getting mutliple comments about putting more tokens which is probably not the right move.

More tokens makes it harder to bottom out, so technically your bike will not get as low towards the end of travel. But you want the bike to ride higher at all times, which means less sag, which means more air, which may require removing tokens to get full travel and make it feel better in the midstroke.

 

[jeanmarc]

I guess my comment should have been: "Test with tokens in the back suspension, try removing or adding..."

 

[Mikerb]

In order:.....

Read the trail better.
Time your pedal turns.
Reduce the rebound damping on your suspension.
Don't have more than 30% sag.
Increase number of tokens in the suspension.
Shorter cranks.

Only the last one costs money.
(Well OK, the 2nd to last might cost a few quid if you don't already have one).

totally agree..maybe one proviso. The amount of travel of the shock should have some influence on the amount of SAG set. Assuming the shock has 170mm travel, SAG set at 30% would be 51mm most of which would reduce the height of the BB by the same amount.........and that is just with riders weight. OK, SAG is set according to rider weight but that can be influenced by how the shock is tuned. I have 170mm X2 on my Whyte E 180..........I have SAG set at 25%.

 

[steve_sordy]

I have looked at a variety of different full suss bikes and if you take the centreline of the BB and drop it by 30% of the sag (25% for XC bikes), then measure up from the floor to the pedal centreline, the height you get is very consistent. This is why lots of bikes have shorter cranks, I suspect that there is a design convention to have the pedal centerline at design sag not to be closer to the ground than "X". (I confess I can't remember what "X" is anymore, it was ages ago since I looked at it).

 

[Mikerb]

I have looked at a variety of different full suss bikes and if you take the centreline of the BB and drop it by 30% of the sag (25% for XC bikes), then measure up from the floor to the pedal centreline, the height you get is very consistent. This is why lots of bikes have shorter cranks, I suspect that there is a design convention to have the pedal centerline at design sag not to be closer to the ground than "X". (I confess I can't remember what "X" is anymore, it was ages ago since I looked at it).

interesting...I'm sure there is a basic design convention but the ground clearance is of course dynamic once you are riding and so a number of other variables come into play. Many of those have been mentioned a bove in terms of shock tune for example.

There is even a variance depending upon how you actually measure SAG on the shock and no real agreement on what is the correct method. Some say measure shock SAG when sat on the saddle.........others say measure shock SAG when stood on the pedals in the ready position. Each will give a different result! I use the ready position to set set both shock and fork SAG because I spend most of my time on the pedals rather than seated but i guess if you use that method but then ride singletrack or climbs in a seated position, you are going to have a lower BB.

Another factor is the degree of anti dive intergral to the kinematics of any particular bike design. Probably more especially when climbing. A design which allows more dive will sink the BB lower under pedal pressure.

My experience of having a very low BB is with my Whyte E180 RS. Like the Reign it is a long/low Enduro type design more applicable to lumpy downhill riding than allround trail and certainly no master at climbing. Even riding over the BB the weight balance is more to the rear which is what you might expect for a more gravity oriented bike, so that has to be compensated for if you want the bike to be a little more all purpose. I fitted higher rise bars, keep the shock at 25% SAG, and have fitted 155mm cranks; and rarely ride seated other than if just cruising. The bike is just as good as it was stock downhill but now more capable on singletrack and climbs. How much all of that relates directly to the Reign I dont know but it is all worth playing with!

 

[Rosemount]

It's a good job Gary isn't here these days LOL

Where is Gary who never pedal strikes . No , merely glances his pedals very occasionally. LOL

 

[steve_sordy]

Where is Gary who never pedal strikes . No , merely glances his pedals very occasionally. LOL

And rides barefoot of course, to match his barehanded rides, in Winter! (And I'm not kidding about that last one).

 

[steve_sordy]

interesting...I'm sure there is a basic design convention but the ground clearance is of course dynamic once you are riding and so a number of other variables come into play. Many of those have been mentioned a bove in terms of shock tune for example.

There is even a variance depending upon how you actually measure SAG on the shock and no real agreement on what is the correct method. Some say measure shock SAG when sat on the saddle.........others say measure shock SAG when stood on the pedals in the ready position. Each will give a different result! I use the ready position to set set both shock and fork SAG because I spend most of my time on the pedals rather than seated but i guess if you use that method but then ride singletrack or climbs in a seated position, you are going to have a lower BB.

Another factor is the degree of anti dive intergral to the kinematics of any particular bike design. Probably more especially when climbing. A design which allows more dive will sink the BB lower under pedal pressure.

My experience of having a very low BB is with my Whyte E180 RS. Like the Reign it is a long/low Enduro type design more applicable to lumpy downhill riding than allround trail and certainly no master at climbing. Even riding over the BB the weight balance is more to the rear which is what you might expect for a more gravity oriented bike, so that has to be compensated for if you want the bike to be a little more all purpose. I fitted higher rise bars, keep the shock at 25% SAG, and have fitted 155mm cranks; and rarely ride seated other than if just cruising. The bike is just as good as it was stock downhill but now more capable on singletrack and climbs. How much all of that relates directly to the Reign I dont know but it is all worth playing with!

I agree with Mike's points. I was bored when I looked at a variety of bikes to see what the sagged pedal clearance might be, but I was surprised to see how uniform it was. I totally agree that once you start riding then the clearance will be all over the place, but at least the starting point appears to be very similar.

The thing about the various sag setting recommendations is that they are for the initial set up on a new-to-you bike. I'm sure we each have our preferred set up method, but once the bike has been ridden, all bets are off! I very swiftly get the bike close to spot on during the first ride. Over the next few rides, the suspension and tyre pressures get steadily tweaked. Mods more involved than adjusting pressure and tweaking dials tend to follow after several weeks or even months.

 

[Leica9]

What is your static BB height? Today's enduro bikes average 342mm, with a range of 330 to 350. The position of the flip chip and the tires you run will change the static height.

Modern Enduro Bike Geometry Compared, Analyzed, and Explained

Enduro bike geometry varies from mountain bike to mountain bike and from brand to brand. In this article, we compare, analyze, and explain the differences in enduro bike geometry on 27.5" and 29" mountain bikes.

www.singletracks.com

When seated on the bike, a 6% change in sag will move the BB height by 10mm.

 

[Donamici]

Anyone got a link to the 155 Miranda cranks?

 

[Jurassic]

Anyone got a link to the 155 Miranda cranks?

Miranda Mis17 Unisex Adult E Bike Fit Alloy Cranks Delta Style E Bike Cranks Delta - Black, 155mm https://amzn.eu/d/cgwAyt3

 

[Bordtea]

Tried out the Miranda 152mm cranks today having kept the sag the same as last week. Miles better. Still a few strikes that could have been avoided through timing. Not quite back to where my Haibike AllMtn was in terms of technical climbing ability but I think with 25% sag it should help some more.

One thing that did occur to me is that I changed from a stock 2.5 rear tyre to 2.4 (from new). I can’t imagine this drastically affected clearance, but ´at have made an impact?

 

[Coffin Dodger]

I have a medium reign E+0 2022 and have it in the low setting and very rarely get any pedal strikes with saint clipless pedals, the medium comes with 160 cranks and when I measured the BB in low it was 335mm so perhaps the larger frames are just a bit lower and with 165 cranks would cause more pedal strikes

Edited D'oh